


Somewhere Between Devotion and Heresy

by Subtlety Lost (fishstic)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Gen, this has been stewing for a while
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-06 01:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11589882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishstic/pseuds/Subtlety%20Lost
Summary: There's not a lot that Leliana doesn't see in Haven. She pretends to look away, pretends not to notice, but she's there. When she overhears a conversation between the Herald, Andrea Trevelyan, and a Chantry sister from Ostwick, she wonders if maybe there wasn't some kind of Divine Intervention that led Andrea to the Conclave in the first place.





	Somewhere Between Devotion and Heresy

**Author's Note:**

> Ignoring that I'm semi-bad at summaries, I was reminded yesterday or maybe the day before, that I had an Inquisitor who wanted to become Divine. 
> 
> Andrea, a name in Common likely derived from Andraste (at least this is what I went with when naming this Trevelyan)
> 
> \--  
> Andrea Trevelyan, from ages 2 to 8, wanted nothing more than to live in the Chantry, and nothing less than to someday become Divine. Citing that if she were Divine, no one would ever go hungry again. 
> 
> Now, Andrea is wanted for the murder of Divine Justinia. Herald of Andraste, a title that makes her religious work something between Devotion and Heresy, Andrea can't really become Divine now--and she makes no mistakes in knowing that Herald of Andraste is nothing even close to being Divine.
> 
> \--   
> it's unbeta'd sorry

Leliana stared from her tent, watching the Herald with keen eyes. Andrea Trevelyan was a topic of great interest around Haven, and Leliana couldn’t help but also be interested. She knew a lot about the young woman, it was true. But one thing bugged her, the scar on Andrea’s throat. Nothing really explained that, not even Josie who had met Andrea when they were girls could explain it. As it were, Andrea was sitting by the fire that a few of Leliana’s scouts usually gathered around. She seemed to be waiting on something.

“You really shouldn’t sit on the snow, Andrea.”

Leliana pretended to look away when the Chantry sister approached the Herald, despite knowing that both of them likely knew she was listening, observing. There wasn’t a whole lot that happened in Haven that Leliana wasn’t aware of.

“The Revered Mother warned you about this, many times,” the chantry sister continued, handing Andrea a cup of something that was steaming. “You’ll catch cold doing that.”

Andrea just shrugged and stared at the cup in her hands quietly.

“For what it’s worth,” the Chantry sister said, “the Revered Mother believed in you right up ‘til the end.”

“She shouldn’t have,” Andrea replied very quietly. “Henrietta, I’m the worst possible choice for any of this.”

“Do you still want to be Divine?” Henrietta asked.

“Even if I did, I couldn’t,” Andrea said. “It’s somewhere between Devotion and Heresy that I’m named for Andraste, and being called Her herald doesn’t help me any.”

“When you were little,” Henrietta said. “You couldn’t even _say_ the word ‘Divine’ but you vowed that you would become that. That you would lead the Chantry and with you in charge no one would ever be hungry again.”

“People change, Henrietta,” Andrea replied.

“People do, but you’re the one who still gives their food to strangers even if it means you don’t eat anything that day,” Henrietta said.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Andrea said. “Have you heard anything from my brothers?”

“The mage wishes to join you here, but the Teyrn won’t permit him to leave Ostwick,” Henrietta said.

“I’m sure Sister Nightingale can arrange for Jack to join me,” Andrea said. She sighed slightly and looked up, directly at Leliana.

Leliana nodded slightly, making a note to send some of her agents to retrieve Jack Trevelyan for his sister. Though she wasn’t sure why, from what she understood of Trevelyan family drama, Andrea wasn’t on speaking terms with any of them.

“You actually want him here?” Henrietta asked.

“He may have given me this scar, but it wasn’t his fault, I got in the way.” She bit her lip. “I never told the Revered Mother what actually happened with my family, why they kicked me out. It’s cause I stopped listening, stopped allowing them to pretend like the only reason for my existence was to entertain male guests. I was going to join the Chantry. Then the Teyrn and Jack got into a fight, because Jack supported me, and the Teyrn doesn’t.”

“How did that lead to Jack being the one who gave you the scar? You nearly died,” Henrietta said.

“He came at the Teyrn with a knife, and the Teyrn pushed me in the way cause I was arguing with them trying to get them to stop fighting,” Andrea replied. “And yeah, I nearly died, but I don’t forget that it was healers like my brother that saved my life.”

“You did end up joining the Chantry,” Henrietta noted.

“I know,” Andrea said. “And now the Chantry wants nothing to do with me. I suppose it’s for the best. I’m learning how to fight now. I’ll be strong enough to depose my brother if the time comes for that. Ostwick needs a fair and just ruler, not an asshole like Tomas.”

“Your mother wanted you to join the Chantry, not become Teyrna,” Henrietta said.

“I know that too, and Lady Montilyet’s mother wanted me to marry her daughter,” Andrea said. “We don’t always get what we want.”

“If Lady Montilyet’s mother wanted you to marry Lady Montilyet, why didn’t you?”

“Because Lady Montilyet didn’t want to marry me. She thought we weren’t old enough, and that a marriage between us wouldn’t be beneficial because we wouldn’t be able to have children.” Andrea smiled wryly. “We don’t always get what we want. I would have given anything for Lady Josephine to see how much I loved her, for her to see that if children were needed we could adopt them. There are very few things I regret more in this life than losing contact with her, and now that I have it—her—back being too afraid to talk to her.”

“Do you want me to talk to her for you?”

“No, thank you, Henrietta but the things I need to say to her, need to be said by me.”

Henrietta nodded. “Is the tea good? It’s compliments of Lady Montilyet.”

“It is, pardon the turn of phrase, divine.”

Henrietta smiled. “I will let her know that you enjoyed it. Do get out of the snow at some point, Adan probably isn’t too happy with having to make potions to fight colds just because the Herald likes to sit in the snow.”

“I don’t know if you noticed this or not, Henrietta, but Haven is pretty much nothing but snow.”

After Henrietta left, Andrea got up and walked over to Leliana’s tent. Leliana busied herself with writing a note for her agents to instruct them on bringing Jack to the Inquisition.

“No doubt you heard all of that,” Andrea said.

Leliana nodded but otherwise did not reply.

“Learn anything you didn’t already know?’

“You wanted to be the Divine,” Leliana said.

“Yet the chantry thinks I’m responsible for Justinia’s death,” Andrea replied. “Murdering the previous Divine would seriously hurt my chances of becoming the next one. I haven’t wished to be Divine since I was very small. Before returning to the Chantry, I did not even remember that it was a thing I ever wanted.”

“My agents in the Hinterlands have sent numerous reports about your kindness towards the refugees, and the lengths you’ll go to trying to end conflict without violence,” Leliana said. “If anyone were to be Divine, you would be a good choice.”

“I disagree,” Andrea stated.

Leliana scoffed slightly. “Oh?”

“Being kind and pacifistic does not mean I would make a good Divine,” Andrea stated. “The Writ of the Divine, was given to Cassandra by Divine Beatrix, and Justinia saw this war was coming and was trying to take steps to prevent it. I would make for a terrible Divine, because if I saw this war was coming, I would have curbed it by separating the mages and Templars in the first place. If mages feel the Templars are oppressive, then remove them from the building, set them up guarding the place but not directly interacting with it. The circle should teach mages magic, not teach them to fear the thought of existing.”

“You say that like you know how that feels,” Leliana stated.

“Some mages are better people than I am,” Andrea said. “For years, I feared existing the way I do, feared my family. They never wanted a daughter that likes girls, they wanted a daughter that would join the chantry or give them grandchildren. Both of those exclude liking girls. My father, and my brothers—except for Jack—made it very clear what would happen to me if I refused to pretend to be what I am not. Mages feel that fear every day that they are alive. In or out of the circle, most mages feel that. A vast majority of them experience things that reinforce that fear. It shouldn’t be this way. No one should be forced to fear the thought of existing, over something they didn’t ask to be born with.”

“What makes Jack an exception, other than being a mage?” Leliana asked.

“Jack, never told anyone but me this. Jack likes men,” Andrea replied. “Jack feared the repercussions of admittance to that, because he saw them happen to me.”

“Herald, Andrea, do you really want Jack to be here with you?” Leliana asked.

“I do,” Andrea replied. “Jack’s the only directly related to me Trevelyan that was ever nice to me, besides my mom. My om was nice until she wasn’t.”

“Directly related?”

“I met this Tevinter guy at one of my family’s parties. His name was Dorian, and he was also really nice, we found each other on the family trees,” Andrea replied. “A quite distant relation, nearly ten generations back, but we did find each other.”

“I see, oh, Andrea before you leave,” Leliana said. “If you’re going to talk to Josephine, you may want to do it soon, before she has a chance to decide that you don’t remember her.”

Andrea blushed and mumbled something then headed off. Leliana chuckled slightly. Perhaps Andrea was right, and the whole situation was somewhere between devotion and heresy, but the Chantry needs change, and Andrea was a good person to start that, having worked directly under the Revered Mother of Ostwick before things went horribly wrong. Andrea was the kind of person who would shake the world, either die young or live to rip the stars out of the sky, and she wasn’t dead yet. All things considered, the fact that she was still trying to get the Chantry to like and accept them, that was a hell of a devotion.


End file.
